


In Which Howard Left Tony One Gift Instead of Two

by thorin_oakengofuckyourself



Series: i would like to issue an apology to the avengers fandom [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, consider this like the opposite of a hobbit fix-it au, i eagerly await your tears/anger/screams of anguish, i'm sorry in advance, tony my son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 23:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorin_oakengofuckyourself/pseuds/thorin_oakengofuckyourself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, In Which Tony Gives Up Way Too Easily (and it Really Hurts to Watch)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Howard Left Tony One Gift Instead of Two

**Author's Note:**

> wow remember when i was in the avengers fandom  
> yeah  
> good times
> 
> anyway, here's an old thing i did many eons ago, which can also be found on my deviantart that i've since lost the password to :v
> 
> i love tony with all my soul  
> so of course i had to kill him

When Tony is five, he learns what it means to be a Stark. He watches Howard drink himself into oblivion and reminds himself not to speak, not to move too much, not to be intrusive and ask things that aren't his business. But he's a stupid kid, so he sometimes touches something that belongs to Howard and is sent off to Maria to be handled.  
  
His mother smears scarlet lipstick across his forehead with a kiss, smooths his hair back, and sets him in her lap, all the bright bangles clinking on her arms and fragrant spray in her hair and sweet 70s roundness in her voice and warm eyes the colour of love.  
  
So he watches Howard and loves Maria, and he learns how to drink and mouth off and swagger and bullshit and laugh too loud and smile too tightly and pretend that nothing hurts (everything does).  
  
\--  
  
When Tony is twenty-one, with a booming company in his arms, grooves like seashells in his circuit boards, and Obie's firm hand a comforting touch on his shoulder, he moves to Malibu and takes his robots with him. He builds a new one and calls it -- _him_ \-- JARVIS, and it's his newly-born AI that runs the house, the schedule, and sometimes Tony when he's powering through his third day in the shop without sleep or just too drunk to care (there are more of those days than he likes to admit).  
  
It reminds him of a short, stocky man with bright eyes and a few wrinkles and silvery-blonde hair like a whisper who used to pick him up sometimes and play with him, let him watch while he bustled about in the kitchen preparing meals. Four-year-old Tony would smile and laugh and so would Jarvis, and they'd get flour or egg or whatever all over themselves, and the old man would tut in a way so British it hurt before drawing a bath. They would waltz in the living room and sing nursery rhymes in the kitchen; they would read old dusty books by the fire and take apart watches at night; and sometimes Jarvis would just talk, talk about anything. Tony would listen and record it, and on days when the butler was gone, he would replay the tapes and smile, just a little bit.  
  
Jarvis died when Tony was 10. He didn't understand.  
  
So he christens his new sentient intelligence JARVIS and drinks to forget, torn between regretting that he ever decided to give the AI his old butler's voice and reveling in the realization that he has, in a way, gotten him back. He has resurrected the most fatherly man he'd ever known, and he smiles warmly as JARVIS's gentle, accented voice coaxes him out of his stupor, DUM-E's quiet clicking sounding off in his ears as the little helper bot nudges the bottle out of his hands.  
  
"Sir," he says, and damned if he doesn't sound legitimately concerned. He sighs, his tone gentle and soft, as Tony mutters something unintelligible with red rims around his sore, coffee-coloured eyes. He recruits DUM-E to help Tony stagger over to the cot and pull a blanket over him. "Sleep well, Mr. Stark."  
  
\--  
  
Tony goes to Afghanistan and comes home with an Iron Man blueprint, a nightlight in his chest, and the ghosts of a man who wore suits in a cave and spoke one word of Hungarian and hummed sweet tunes while he shaved and came from a place called Gulmira.  
  
He puts Hot Rod Red on the suit and runs before he can walk and Obie's big hands make him nervous now for a reason he doesn't understand; he trusts too much, loves too hard (God, it hurts, it burns and it's a stab in the back, and his shiny new heart is ripped from the hole in his chest -- ), fries the Iron Monger suit and announces his secret identity (but he isn't a hero, he's  _not_ ; he's a man in a titanium alloy piece of shit who's trying to atone for his sins, and he's not cut out for this bullshit, for being liked, for being appreciated and doing good things and  _being a good person_ ).  
  
At least, that's what he tells himself.  
  
\--  
  
The government comes after his suits and Tony makes jokes, fires off quick, smart-ass quips like repulsor blasts and embarrasses Justin Hammer like it's second-nature (and it is, if he's honest; Hammer is the bad penny that keeps mysteriously reappearing when he least expects him, an eerie mirror just a shade too dark, a cruel metaphor for what Tony is just three steps away from becoming) and the palladium is poisoning him, drowning him, seeping into his blood with creeping cold and prickling pain.  
  
\--  
  
Tony takes the reactor out, replaces the core, and pulls in a deep, shuddering breath; he blinks blearily at the 24% toxicity level JARVIS brings up on a nearby screen.  
  
Sometimes, when Tony is by himself, he takes the reactor out and wonders if it's worth it to put it back in.  
  
\--  
  
Tony measures his self-worth in shallow bodies and cold breath and sleepless nights and warm sheets. He fucks girls whose names he can't remember (but Pepper does) and wakes up most mornings to an empty bed and Pepper and JARVIS letting light in through the windows with the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen.  
  
\--  
  
"If this was the last birthday you were ever going to have," he asks the new girl with brilliant red hair and killer sharp eyes and lips like scarlet, so familiar and soft and sweet, "how would you celebrate it?"  
  
"I would do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with," she answers, and there's no sympathy in it, no sugar-coating, just the sense that Natalie sees no point in brooding over his swiftly-approaching expiration date.  
  
But she smiles softly, a shy gesture of femininity, and it's a small, sweet thing that makes Tony ache in a way he hasn't felt since Pepper held his heart in her delicate, porcelain hands.  
  
He figures he's long overdue anyway.  
  
\--  
  
So Tony parties and lets go and Rhodey makes off with the War Machine suit, and Tony slides down onto the floor with aching bones and too-bright eyes and a sense of regret that cripples him so badly that he doesn't think he ever wants to move again because he's a fucking piece of shit and he doesn't deserve them, never deserved Rhodey and Pepper and JARVIS and Yinsen and everyone who's ever given two shits about him.  
  
The only thing he's ever deserved was that smart-bomb exploding in his face.  
  
\--  
  
He meets Natalie again (Natasha, really, or whatever N name she's chosen to use this week), and this time Nick Fury has decided to join the party, and he laughs right in their faces when they tell him that he needs a reality check because he's fucking Iron Man (isn't he?) and he can do whatever he wants. He's  _dying_ , damn it, and there's nothing anyone can do, so they might as well give up on this moronic "togetherness" bullshit they seem to be so fond of and leave him alone to poison himself in peace.  
  
\--  
  
Somehow, eventually, Tony ends up on a chair with an aching heart and heavy shoulders and an old reel in the player. Howard flickers to life on screen, every inch the man from the newsreels, and Tony looks away as he gives his spiel. He briefly flicks damp eyes up at the screen when Howard angrily shoos a younger version of him away, smacking the hand that lingers on a piece of his delicate "map of the future" or whatever the fuck he's going on about, the bastard.  
  
Howard plugs away and Tony doesn't notice, but then it happens.  
  
"Tony."  
  
Tony jerks, his head snapping up to look at Howard, something like old fear sparking in his gut.  _What now_ , he thinks tiredly.  _Did you leave a last message for me to tell me what a worthless fuck I am?_  
  
But the elder Stark gives a small, almost shy smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way his son never got to see. He leans back, hands on his display, and begins with "You're too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on a film for you -" The projection of Howard continues on about how he's limited by the tech of his time, but that Tony will understand one day and then he'll change the world. Tony just laughs, hollow and bitter and the bottom of a bottle, and decides not to listen any more.  
  
That is, until Howard sucker-punches him with "What is, and always will be, my greatest creation... is  _you_." Tony looks back at his father, at the man with tired, old eyes that have seen so much and lost so much, and Tony says "Oh," and swallows back whatever feeling is clamoring up his throat to escape; he can't handle this right now, he can't handle the possibility that Howard might actually have cared -- he can't say loved, he  _won't_  -- about him.  
  
Howard stares right at him with those eyes, shadowed by the heavy light and grainy screen, and in that moment Tony understands that Howard just didn't quite understand how to tell his son he loved him, so he did the only thing he could (and hoped Maria and Jarvis would do better in his stead): he made him brilliant and gave him a key to the world. He did the only thing for Tony he knew how to do.  
  
He laughs again, quieter this time, and lets the video end. He blinks; once, twice, three times.  
  
But Tony doesn't move. He doesn't get up and run to Pepper's office to rip the cover off of Howard's "map of the future", he just sits quietly and lets the "Daddy never loved me" issue go away (well, not really; he just thinks about how much he needs a damn drink). He sucks in a deep breath and twinges as soreness rubs its calloused fingers over the arc reactor, his shoulders, his neck.  
  
"Sir," JARVIS says quietly, and isn't that always a constant in his life (for once), this AI reminding him of everything from his business meetings to repairing the armour (not that he can really wear it much anymore, his back can't take it and the reactor burns his chest) to brushing his Goddamn teeth every night.  
  
"Yeah, JARVIS?"  
  
"Your palladium core is running out, Sir. I suggest you return to the workshop and insert a new one. Your blood toxicity level is 78 percent."  
  
Tony sighs and pushes himself out of the chair. He stumbles into the shop, JARVIS's smooth voice following him all the way and telling him that his blood is getting dangerously flooded with the discharge from the palladium cores and that, if he is going to do something about it, he needs to do it now.  
  
Tony shuts him up because Pepper walks in then in high red heels and a close-fitting power suit; screaming  _business_ from the dip of her ankles to the edge of her fringe. She smiles, but it's tight, unnatural. It doesn't suit Pepper to be that way. He almost tells her so, but then thinks better of it and just gives her a smile in return that he hopes doesn't look too strained.  
  
"Hey, Pep," he says, and he prays she doesn't catch the sigh in it or the rings of aching loneliness around his eyes. The way she walks in, the little frown line in between her eyebrows that she only gets when she's announcing something unpleasant, the suit that he likes, the way those delicate freckles peek out from under her makeup; they all mean one thing.  
  
"Tony, I... I'm leaving," she breathes, shakes, like she doesn't want him to hear, and squeezes her eyes shut briefly. Tony starts to nod because he knows -- the pressure of running Stark Industries is pretty high, and he hadn't expected Pepper to accommodate him for as long as she did.  
  
"I'm leaving... Y-you." She says it louder this time, her eyes like a gasp of cloud-spattered sky staring blankly at the floor, at that awful vector of the Iron Man helmet on the wall, anywhere but Tony.  
  
Tony splutters, "What?" And Pepper must have had a hellaciously long day because she mistakes it for anger and they end up yelling; she about how she can't handle the stress of running Stark Industries anymore while Tony sits in the shop with his thumbs planted firmly up his ass or flies around in a Goddamn tin can like he's some sort of comic book hero; he about how he needs her, _please_ , don't leave, Pepper, everybody leaves in the end, please stay. They yell and hiss and spit, and she storms out and Tony has a handprint on his face.  
  
\--  
  
Coping for Tony means throwing himself into the workshop. He engineers, throws out designs, and engineers more, trying to find a cure for the palladium poisoning. He drinks the awful witch's brew JARVIS has concocted for him; he's been drinking it for months now, and he sighs because there's no possible way that he'll see the end of the year.  
  
\--  
  
He stirs when DUM-E bumps his arm under his chin in an attempt to wake him. He smells toast and realizes that it's been three days and he hasn't eaten or slept. He smiles feebly, knows he won't be able to keep down the toast, but takes a bite anyway and sends DUM-E, happily chirping, back to his charging station.  
  
Three days later and he's sitting where he was last time, a crick in his neck and his back and  _everywhere_ , one hand curled limply around the neck of a bottle and the other holding an old picture of Howard, Tony and Maria from when he was three years old, at the beach. No one is smiling.  
  
Tony feels the blood bubbling up, in his veins, in his throat, and is suddenly struck with the realization that  _this is it_. He is going to die. He smiles goofily, coughs, and glances up. He can't actually move his head up; it hurts far, far too much everywhere for that sort of silliness. He stares up, though, with wet eyes and the reactor a heavy, lonely weight in his chest (or is it his heart?).  
  
"JARVIS, you up?" He croaks.  
  
"For you, Sir, always," JARVIS responds, a kind smile in his voice -- his best way to prevent the strain of worry from being audible to his creator. He can only respond with warmth in his tone, and if Tony hears the AI's voice wobble then he's too gracious to say anything about it, and he watches dutifully through the cameras as Tony smiles, laughs, and begins to talk quietly.  
  
"You know, JARVIS, you are the best thing I've ever made," he whispers. "You're a bot, and yet you say everything with such conviction, such feeling. It never ceases to amaze me how human you really are."  
  
"I'm flattered, Sir," JARVIS says, deadpan to untrained ears; but Tony knows better, knows that if he could, JARVIS would be smiling. Tony winks cheekily at him, says, "You're the best, JARVIS. It's been real," with a smile; he laughs, sputters, and dies, his last breath rattling around all the mechanics in his chest and bubbling up his lips in a layer of blood. His body goes slack, slumping against DUM-E's arm as the little bot whirs and chirps frantically, the last echoes of a smile on his face. DUM-E reaches up to grip his claw in Tony's shirt; he doesn't disturb him, but he chirps in distress.  
  
The reactor flickers, blinks, and dies out, the absence of its soft blue glow making hollows in Tony's cheeks.  
  
"Sir?" He asks quietly. "Mr. Stark?"  
  
Tony remains quiet and still. DUM-E lets out a sad-sounding whirring noise. You and Butterfingers beep delicately, wheeling closer to the other bot. JARVIS sighs, and, if he were human, he would have sunk into a chair with his head in his hands. Instead, he makes phone calls.  
  
Rhodey is stunned into silence, and he runs a hand over his face, thanks JARVIS quietly for letting him know, and there is a soldier in his voice; Pepper screams and cries and beats her fists against the wall, tells JARVIS that he's wrong, he has to be wrong, how could Tony be gone, he wasn't even sick or anything, he was fine, he was.  
  
\--  
  
The lab is quiet. Everything is as it was when Tony left. JARVIS tries to keep the bots busy, but he can tell that DUM-E is confused and missing the erratic engineer with his snarky, quick wit and gentle touch and whiskey-wet voice and eyes that crinkle around the edges like paper wet with a splash of coffee.  
  
He wonders if deactivating them would be kinder, but then again, DUM-E is JARVIS's oldest friend. He can't bring himself to do it.  
  
\--  
  
The company is left to Pepper, who comes into the office the week after Tony's death with tight lips and deflated hair and a gasp of lostness in her ocean-spray eyes. Pepper is strong; she runs around the office with her back straight and her smile set, and if her eyes are a little watery and her voice is a little weak, then nobody has the heart to mention it to her.  
  
Rhodey gets two weeks' leave. He doesn't know where to go. In the end, he decides on going to the house in Malibu and reminiscing with JARVIS, who -- if Rhodey didn't know better -- he would say is grieving in his own quiet way. The colonel ventures bravely into the workshop, taps on Iron Man's mask and says "Come on out, Tony, we miss you, we need you," and nobody is there to answer him but JARVIS and DUM-E and that's okay, it'll be okay, but maybe it won't because all the life and brilliance and  _Tony_  has gone out of this place, and it feels wrong to be there, but he can't bear to leave.  
  
\--  
  
Iron Man does not join the Avengers Initiative.  
  
The plans for Stark Tower gather dust, so to speak, in the workshop computer's files until Pepper tenderly drags them out one day and decides to turn them into a memorial tower.  
  
\--  
  
Steve Rogers does not meet Tony Stark.  
  
Bruce does not feel at home.  
  
Natasha does not smile.  
  
Thor is not Point Break.  
  
Clint is not Legolas.  
  
Coulson falls.  
  
Loki still doesn't get that drink.  
  
  
They do not win.

**Author's Note:**

> in my defense:  
> A) i wrote this months ago  
> B) my opinion of the elder stark has since changed (a psa: howard stark is still a huge dickbag)
> 
> i'm really and truly sorry for the bit about the team at the end there; i couldn't resist
> 
> i excitedly await any comments/criticisms!


End file.
